Badlittlekitten's top 100 Albums

streetwaves · 03-02-2013, 01:05 AM

Nice thread! Good to see some Exuma love.

Badlittlekitten · 03-07-2013, 06:39 PM

Glad you like it. I'm sure I discovered some great things in your year list thread.

Apologies for being slow with this. I promise it WILL continue.

Badlittlekitten · 05-15-2013, 10:13 AM

92
Peter Brotzmann - Machine Gun
1968
Free Jazz/Improv
Best tracks; Machine Gun, Music For Han Bennink, Responsible

Loud, reckless free jazz. It's the sound of German saxophonist Brotzmann turning a gatling gun into the direction of the jazz scene and blowing it to smithereens. It's the sound of a band in a state of non-stop tension, from twitchy unease to full on ruckus. It's like they've been locked inside the studio with the violent chicken from Family Guy. Except this one's LOUD, and its panicked screams and squawks fill the room as it tumbles over the drum kit, fists flying. Machine Gun is far more visceral than any other 'noise' record I've listened to. Yet there's these wonderful, fleeting moments where the fists drop and the musicians band together. They are battered and bloody but you feel that the chaos is finally over. The session ends and they ride home like brothers, into the sunset.

Nightfalls, and the silence of the studio is eerie. The chicken lies torn an twisted inside the bass drum.

Its eyes open.

Badlittlekitten · 05-15-2013, 11:13 AM

91
Silver Apples - Contact
1968
Psychedelic Rock/Early Electro
Best tracks; A Pox On You, I Have Known Love, Ruby, Fantasies, You're Not Fooling Me.

I couldn't put it any better than some bloke from Wire magazine, "a four-track recording fusing layered oscillators, sustained chords, frantic skitterings of unearthly insects and Dan Taylor's metronomic drumming. It is the sound of the American dream dissolving into a nightmare."

Except, more importantly, it's one of the few albums that brings out my trusty set of air drums. And if I close my eyes tight enough during 'Water', I swear, I can actually teleport across my living room. And that wibbly wobbly thing during 'You're Not Fooling Me' gets me shaking my head from side to side until my neck's sore. In fact there's a lot of wobbly oscillator bits and it's luvly jubbly. The hypnotic drones of Contact set the foundation for fellow pysch/electro adventurers Suicide, Kraftwerk, Can, Neu! and virtually everyone that made the early seventies so exciting. It's also funny and funky and pretty and spooky. Now let me join you gadgeteers!

Badlittlekitten · 08-03-2013, 05:22 PM

90
Bob Marley and The Wailers - Trenchtown Rock (Anthology 1969-78)
2002
Reggae
Best tracks: 'Mr Brown', 'Keep On Skanking', 'Trenchtown Rock', 'Lively Up Yourself', 'Sun Is Shining', 'Duppy Conqueror', 'Jah Is Mighty' , 'Back Out', 'Fussing and Fighting' . . impossible to limit to five!

It's a bit sad that the sterile, westernised sounds of Legend and Exodus are what Marley's most famous for. This is how any good music snob should get their Marley fix. This compilation of the Wailer's non-Island, largely Lee Perry produced work is simply one of the most joyful collections of music there is. It's warm and rough around the edges and has the most impassioned vocals that Marley ever laid down. I tend to skip half of the tracks on it to be honest, but there is over 50 of the damn things! Something I should tell you before we continue . . I struggle to get through an LP that's over 45 minutes. You won't see many other comps or double albums on my list. I'll always take a concise, very good album over an occasionally great long album.

But what highs! 'Back Out' is a stern but upbeat plea to that person who often turns up to the party. You know, the one that brings unnecessary tension, shifty eyes and a whiff of violence to dampen the fun. The person that is "making things go slow" as Marley wonderfully puts it. 'Duppy Conqueror' is an impossibly pretty sounding thing that has the Wailer's making bird coo noises for backing vocals. 'Sun Is Shining' isn't the summer pop smash you think it is. It's the sound of a storm brewing in a spooky shanty town. There might be a shootout tonight. The glorious fairground skank of 'Mr Brown' contains the greatest chorus I've ever heard. (The cruelest too. You only get to hear it one and a half times). Bunny Livingstone's 'Dreamland' is a ballad so touching that it isn't even ruined by its association with an ex-lover, even if the "surely we'll never die" fadeout is a challenge. That's the good thing about music. When it hits you feel no pain.

Badlittlekitten · 08-04-2013, 01:01 PM

89
Gilberto Gil - Gilberto Gil
1968
Tropicalia/Psychedelic pop
Best tracks; 'Domingo no Parque', 'Luzia Luluza', 'Procissão' 'Ele Falava Nisso Todo Dia', 'Pega a Voga, Cabeludo',

Sunny 60's pop gem from Brazil. When your very art is seen as a threat to your county's military regime and you're on the verge of getting locked up and exiled, surely your work shouldn't be this . . carefree? This playful and breezy? The tropicalia scene - which meshed traditional Brazilian music with the sounds of them evil Yanks/Brits and their rock n' roll - is some of the happiest music to ever come out of such political unrest.

Gilberto is backed by psych heads Os Mutantes and they play samba and bossa nova but choose to muddy it all up with garage rock, psychedelia and all the other good bits from late 60's rock. There's also a lot of gorgeous George Martin style orchestration. It's way ahead of its time, even for 1968, which I'm starting to believe is the greatest year in rock history.

Música e Trabalho: Procissão (Gilberto Gil e Os Mutantes) - YouTube

Domingo no Parque - Gilberto Gil - YouTube

Badlittlekitten · 12-10-2013, 06:56 PM

88
Various Artists - Southern Prison Blues
1965
Blues

Fave Tracks; Guitar Welch - 'Bad Luck Blues', Hogman Maxey - 'Duckin' and Dodgin', Cool Cats - 'Goin' Home', Otis Webster - 'Standing At the Greyhound Station', Joe Henry Jackson - 'Tell Me Pretty Baby'.

The tracks on this lovely little collection were captured by American musicologist Harry Oster during a visit to the Louisiana Sate Penitentiary.

There will be a few blues LP appearing on this list but this may be my favourite 'pure' blues record. I mean, Robert Johnson's King of the Delta Blues Singers is excellent and could have easily been on here instead. Hell, I might even find that I enjoy it more than Southern Prison Blues if I listened to it right now. But that's music. It's not football. It's not judged by trophies and league standings. There's no winners or losers. Sometimes the drug you've just taken or the girl you've just met or the temperature of the room you're in or that extra hour of sleep this morning can make the difference between the greatest album you've ever heard and just another mp3 pulled from fuck knows which blog taking up space on your hard drive. That's why I had to force myself to find an order for this list and stick with it no matter how tempted I may be to reshuffle stuff around, because, outside of the top four, nothing is concrete. It's more about capturing moments in time than anything. Southern Prison Blues caught me at a time when I was pretty apathetic about music, and the world in general. But the harmonica on Jesse Butcher's 'They'll Miss me When I'm Gone' reminded me of how the sound of some con blowing into a piece of metal in the 1950's can feel like the most vital thing in the world right now. Guitar Welch's masterful finger picking reminded me of how I've always wanted to learn how to play the blues (properly), and how the guitar can be such a joyful instrument in the right hands. Otis Webster's voice crackling through the speakers with the line "why should I cry, the bus is going that same old way" filled my head with half memories of being drunk too early, drifting around town, lost, going nowhere and anywhere, anywhere but home. Then Hogman Maxeys beatific 12 string guitar chords brought sunshine. The smoky closing time fumble of 'Goin' Home' brought the sexy back too. Listening to this that day made me feel hugely optimistic. And a blues LP recorded in the nick shouldn't make me feel that way, at least not on paper. But that's music.

misspoptart · 12-11-2013, 04:35 AM

I'm not into most of these genres, and I haven't liked many of the songs you've posted (I so love Gilberto Gil, though) but, Kitten, I think you are an amazing poster. Someday if I ever go through a phase where I'm like, **** son, everything sucks and I need some new recommendations, I will be on top of this thread giving everything a second, third, or fourth chance. No joke. You're obviously very passionate and a good writer. I commend your efforts.

03-02-2013, 01:05 AM	#21 (permalink)
streetwaves Music Addict Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 267	Nice thread! Good to see some Exuma love. __________________ rateyourmusic

03-07-2013, 06:39 PM	#22 (permalink)
Badlittlekitten And then there was music Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Near Wild Heaven Posts: 287	Glad you like it. I'm sure I discovered some great things in your year list thread. Apologies for being slow with this. I promise it WILL continue. __________________ 'Said do you feel it? Do you feel it when you TOUCH ME?. THERE'S A FIRE! THERE'S A FIRE!' The Stooges. Dirt. https://soundcloud.com/bad-little-kittens My Top 100 LPs My Top 52 Indie Tracks Of The 21st Century (incomplete)

05-15-2013, 10:13 AM	#23 (permalink)
Badlittlekitten And then there was music Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Near Wild Heaven Posts: 287	92 Peter Brotzmann - Machine Gun 1968 Free Jazz/Improv Best tracks; Machine Gun, Music For Han Bennink, Responsible Loud, reckless free jazz. It's the sound of German saxophonist Brotzmann turning a gatling gun into the direction of the jazz scene and blowing it to smithereens. It's the sound of a band in a state of non-stop tension, from twitchy unease to full on ruckus. It's like they've been locked inside the studio with the violent chicken from Family Guy. Except this one's LOUD, and its panicked screams and squawks fill the room as it tumbles over the drum kit, fists flying. Machine Gun is far more visceral than any other 'noise' record I've listened to. Yet there's these wonderful, fleeting moments where the fists drop and the musicians band together. They are battered and bloody but you feel that the chaos is finally over. The session ends and they ride home like brothers, into the sunset. Nightfalls, and the silence of the studio is eerie. The chicken lies torn an twisted inside the bass drum. Its eyes open. __________________ 'Said do you feel it? Do you feel it when you TOUCH ME?. THERE'S A FIRE! THERE'S A FIRE!' The Stooges. Dirt. https://soundcloud.com/bad-little-kittens My Top 100 LPs My Top 52 Indie Tracks Of The 21st Century (incomplete) Last edited by Badlittlekitten; 05-15-2013 at 10:51 AM.

05-15-2013, 11:13 AM	#24 (permalink)
Badlittlekitten And then there was music Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Near Wild Heaven Posts: 287	91 Silver Apples - Contact 1968 Psychedelic Rock/Early Electro Best tracks; A Pox On You, I Have Known Love, Ruby, Fantasies, You're Not Fooling Me. I couldn't put it any better than some bloke from Wire magazine, "a four-track recording fusing layered oscillators, sustained chords, frantic skitterings of unearthly insects and Dan Taylor's metronomic drumming. It is the sound of the American dream dissolving into a nightmare." Except, more importantly, it's one of the few albums that brings out my trusty set of air drums. And if I close my eyes tight enough during 'Water', I swear, I can actually teleport across my living room. And that wibbly wobbly thing during 'You're Not Fooling Me' gets me shaking my head from side to side until my neck's sore. In fact there's a lot of wobbly oscillator bits and it's luvly jubbly. The hypnotic drones of Contact set the foundation for fellow pysch/electro adventurers Suicide, Kraftwerk, Can, Neu! and virtually everyone that made the early seventies so exciting. It's also funny and funky and pretty and spooky. Now let me join you gadgeteers! __________________ 'Said do you feel it? Do you feel it when you TOUCH ME?. THERE'S A FIRE! THERE'S A FIRE!' The Stooges. Dirt. https://soundcloud.com/bad-little-kittens My Top 100 LPs My Top 52 Indie Tracks Of The 21st Century (incomplete) Last edited by Badlittlekitten; 05-15-2013 at 12:48 PM.

08-03-2013, 05:22 PM	#25 (permalink)
Badlittlekitten And then there was music Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Near Wild Heaven Posts: 287	90 Bob Marley and The Wailers - Trenchtown Rock (Anthology 1969-78) 2002 Reggae Best tracks: 'Mr Brown', 'Keep On Skanking', 'Trenchtown Rock', 'Lively Up Yourself', 'Sun Is Shining', 'Duppy Conqueror', 'Jah Is Mighty' , 'Back Out', 'Fussing and Fighting' . . impossible to limit to five! It's a bit sad that the sterile, westernised sounds of Legend and Exodus are what Marley's most famous for. This is how any good music snob should get their Marley fix. This compilation of the Wailer's non-Island, largely Lee Perry produced work is simply one of the most joyful collections of music there is. It's warm and rough around the edges and has the most impassioned vocals that Marley ever laid down. I tend to skip half of the tracks on it to be honest, but there is over 50 of the damn things! Something I should tell you before we continue . . I struggle to get through an LP that's over 45 minutes. You won't see many other comps or double albums on my list. I'll always take a concise, very good album over an occasionally great long album. But what highs! 'Back Out' is a stern but upbeat plea to that person who often turns up to the party. You know, the one that brings unnecessary tension, shifty eyes and a whiff of violence to dampen the fun. The person that is "making things go slow" as Marley wonderfully puts it. 'Duppy Conqueror' is an impossibly pretty sounding thing that has the Wailer's making bird coo noises for backing vocals. 'Sun Is Shining' isn't the summer pop smash you think it is. It's the sound of a storm brewing in a spooky shanty town. There might be a shootout tonight. The glorious fairground skank of 'Mr Brown' contains the greatest chorus I've ever heard. (The cruelest too. You only get to hear it one and a half times). Bunny Livingstone's 'Dreamland' is a ballad so touching that it isn't even ruined by its association with an ex-lover, even if the "surely we'll never die" fadeout is a challenge. That's the good thing about music. When it hits you feel no pain. __________________ 'Said do you feel it? Do you feel it when you TOUCH ME?. THERE'S A FIRE! THERE'S A FIRE!' The Stooges. Dirt. https://soundcloud.com/bad-little-kittens My Top 100 LPs My Top 52 Indie Tracks Of The 21st Century (incomplete)

08-04-2013, 01:01 PM	#26 (permalink)
Badlittlekitten And then there was music Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Near Wild Heaven Posts: 287	89 Gilberto Gil - Gilberto Gil 1968 Tropicalia/Psychedelic pop Best tracks; 'Domingo no Parque', 'Luzia Luluza', 'Procissão' 'Ele Falava Nisso Todo Dia', 'Pega a Voga, Cabeludo', Sunny 60's pop gem from Brazil. When your very art is seen as a threat to your county's military regime and you're on the verge of getting locked up and exiled, surely your work shouldn't be this . . carefree? This playful and breezy? The tropicalia scene - which meshed traditional Brazilian music with the sounds of them evil Yanks/Brits and their rock n' roll - is some of the happiest music to ever come out of such political unrest. Gilberto is backed by psych heads Os Mutantes and they play samba and bossa nova but choose to muddy it all up with garage rock, psychedelia and all the other good bits from late 60's rock. There's also a lot of gorgeous George Martin style orchestration. It's way ahead of its time, even for 1968, which I'm starting to believe is the greatest year in rock history. Música e Trabalho: Procissão (Gilberto Gil e Os Mutantes) - YouTube Domingo no Parque - Gilberto Gil - YouTube __________________ 'Said do you feel it? Do you feel it when you TOUCH ME?. THERE'S A FIRE! THERE'S A FIRE!' The Stooges. Dirt. https://soundcloud.com/bad-little-kittens My Top 100 LPs My Top 52 Indie Tracks Of The 21st Century (incomplete) Last edited by Badlittlekitten; 08-04-2013 at 04:21 PM.

12-10-2013, 06:56 PM	#27 (permalink)
Badlittlekitten And then there was music Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Near Wild Heaven Posts: 287	88 Various Artists - Southern Prison Blues 1965 Blues Fave Tracks; Guitar Welch - 'Bad Luck Blues', Hogman Maxey - 'Duckin' and Dodgin', Cool Cats - 'Goin' Home', Otis Webster - 'Standing At the Greyhound Station', Joe Henry Jackson - 'Tell Me Pretty Baby'. The tracks on this lovely little collection were captured by American musicologist Harry Oster during a visit to the Louisiana Sate Penitentiary. There will be a few blues LP appearing on this list but this may be my favourite 'pure' blues record. I mean, Robert Johnson's King of the Delta Blues Singers is excellent and could have easily been on here instead. Hell, I might even find that I enjoy it more than Southern Prison Blues if I listened to it right now. But that's music. It's not football. It's not judged by trophies and league standings. There's no winners or losers. Sometimes the drug you've just taken or the girl you've just met or the temperature of the room you're in or that extra hour of sleep this morning can make the difference between the greatest album you've ever heard and just another mp3 pulled from fuck knows which blog taking up space on your hard drive. That's why I had to force myself to find an order for this list and stick with it no matter how tempted I may be to reshuffle stuff around, because, outside of the top four, nothing is concrete. It's more about capturing moments in time than anything. Southern Prison Blues caught me at a time when I was pretty apathetic about music, and the world in general. But the harmonica on Jesse Butcher's 'They'll Miss me When I'm Gone' reminded me of how the sound of some con blowing into a piece of metal in the 1950's can feel like the most vital thing in the world right now. Guitar Welch's masterful finger picking reminded me of how I've always wanted to learn how to play the blues (properly), and how the guitar can be such a joyful instrument in the right hands. Otis Webster's voice crackling through the speakers with the line "why should I cry, the bus is going that same old way" filled my head with half memories of being drunk too early, drifting around town, lost, going nowhere and anywhere, anywhere but home. Then Hogman Maxeys beatific 12 string guitar chords brought sunshine. The smoky closing time fumble of 'Goin' Home' brought the sexy back too. Listening to this that day made me feel hugely optimistic. And a blues LP recorded in the nick shouldn't make me feel that way, at least not on paper. But that's music. __________________ 'Said do you feel it? Do you feel it when you TOUCH ME?. THERE'S A FIRE! THERE'S A FIRE!' The Stooges. Dirt. https://soundcloud.com/bad-little-kittens My Top 100 LPs My Top 52 Indie Tracks Of The 21st Century (incomplete)

12-11-2013, 04:35 AM	#28 (permalink)
misspoptart gimme gimme Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: istanbul Posts: 897	I'm not into most of these genres, and I haven't liked many of the songs you've posted (I so love Gilberto Gil, though) but, Kitten, I think you are an amazing poster. Someday if I ever go through a phase where I'm like, **** son, everything sucks and I need some new recommendations, I will be on top of this thread giving everything a second, third, or fourth chance. No joke. You're obviously very passionate and a good writer. I commend your efforts.